


Hold Me Here

by scalpelsandhappiness



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 05:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18329921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scalpelsandhappiness/pseuds/scalpelsandhappiness
Summary: Early evening in the park with Levi and Nico. Post 15 x 16.





	Hold Me Here

Levi pulled into a parking space, glad to see Nico lounging against his car a few spots away. The early evening sun was still bright, shining on the water of the small lake in the park.

“Over here!” he heard his boyfriend call out as he got out of the car, grabbing a small bag of birdseed and another of halved grapes.

“Hey, you,” Levi smiled, unzipping his light jacket. He’d spent most of the day sleeping, so it was nice to get a bit of early spring warmth and sun before spending the next 36 hours at work. “How were things today?”

“A lot better than they could be,” Nico noted seriously. “Only a few traumas for my service and none that needed to bump any scheduled surgeries.” Clasping Levi’s hand, they made their way closer to the water and the ducks swimming about. “I was really happy I could leave at a decent hour and actually have time to see you today.”

Handing one bag to Nico, Levi nodded emphatically. “Days like that are gifts we don’t take for granted. Because they are so _rare._ ”

“Yeah,” the taller man huffed out. “I love what I do, so much, don’t get me wrong.” He neatly untied the bag of bird seed, laughing as some ducks started quacking and racing for shore. “But the postgrad years can be brutal at times.”

Levi tossed a few pieces of grapes at the earliest arrivals, smiling as they squabbled amongst themselves for the fruit and bird seed. “True. Every time I feel like I’m getting a grasp on what I’m doing or how things work, I get smacked around by how much there still is to learn. I am feeling better about my ability to get there, though.”

Nico glanced fondly over at Levi, and then they spent the next several minutes in companionable silence, feeding the ducks as well as a few other waterfowl that came over. Nico wasn’t sure if they were loons, or another type of goose. He’d have to look it up before his parents, avid birdwatchers, came to visit.

When the bags were empty, Levi folded them and stashed them in his pockets. “I have time to sit for just a while before I need to leave for work. Want to watch the beginning of the sunset with me?”

“Yeah.” Nico headed for the nearest bench that faced the light starting to brighten the reflective surface of the water, feeling more relaxed than he had in a few days.

. . .

“So.” Levi braced himself for the conversation. “I came out to my mom.”

Nico looked at him intently. “How’d it go?” He hadn’t gotten any abnormally crazed text messages in the last day since they’d seen each other. A few crazed ones babbling about sleep deprivation and what were the best ways to maintain proper blood sugar through 8-hour-long surgeries combined with copious usage of emojis, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Pretty good, I think?” Levi’s voice wobbled a bit. “She didn’t cry, or yell at me, or demand I move out.” He exhaled a long sigh. “The next time we both have the evening off, she wants you to come for dinner.”

Nico smiled. “That doesn’t sound like the spinning out you were expecting.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “I’ve also been soundly lectured on the important of the proper types of condoms and lube and the combinations in which they should be used, the need to be tested regularly for STDs, and informed that although everyone should love whom they want, that too much PDA can be hazardous to my health.”

“Grabbing you in the elevator aside, PDA isn’t really my thing, anyway.”

“Yeah. She doesn’t care that I’m gay, or that I love a man… that I love _you._ She just wants me to be safe. That’s what she always goes a bit overboard about.” Levi winced. “If there were a way to create a portable bubble to keep people safe from any random danger, she’d have gone into mad scientist school to do that instead of accounting.”

“She loves you,” Nico soothed. “You’re lucky. There are a lot of gay people out there who can’t say the same thing about their families.”

“I know.” Levi’s expressive face twisted miserably. “I’ve been doing some research online. The Trevor Project, some message boards… I’d always had people who looked down on me for being a nerd, or clumsy, or socially inept at times. But some of the things I read, and the day I spent a few hours talking with Taryn when we both had a day off?” His voice choked slightly. “I just don’t get why some people in this world think the way we love is so _dangerous_. And that’s where my mom’s thoughts immediately went. Not, oh, he won’t get married to a lovely woman in our synagogue, but that some stranger out there would want to hurt me because of who I’m attracted to and love.”

“I don’t want to sugarcoat it for you, or for her,” Nico stared down at his hands.  “Acceptance can be hard to come by sometimes. But Seattle is one of the most LGBT-safe places in America. And honestly, Levi? For the most part, we both pass as straight. I’ve had way more people in my life yell slurs at me for being part Asian than for being gay.”

“That doesn’t make me feel much better,” Levi responded, his voice trembling. “You’re an amazing person, someone who saves lives, and people still look at the exterior instead of who you are inside. Mom’s going to want a bubble for you, too. It’s how she loves. She goes crazy worrying about all the things that can go wrong that sometimes it overpowers her being happy in the here and now.”

“Do you know what happened to make her behave that way?”

Levi looked down at their hands, now lightly clasped between them on the bench, then up at Nico’s face, lit by the beginnings of sunset. “Yes,” he began hesitantly.  “I was ten years old, sleeping over at my cousin Josh’s house. Mom and Dad were watching TV, and chatting, enjoying an evening together. And Dad had sudden cardiac arrest, fell off the sofa, and died.”

“ _Levi._ ”

“She called 911, and did her best at CPR until the paramedics arrived. And they got his heartbeat back, but when they got to the hospital, they couldn’t sustain it. Uncontrolled vtach. When I decided to do premed, I thought she’d go crazy from the stress. The day I got my BLS card for CPR, she cried in her room because she thought I wouldn’t hear her. But I did,” Levi wiped his eyes quickly.  “She’s been so proud of what I’ve accomplished so far but it also reminded her, that the only time she ever did CPR, she couldn’t save him.”

“Baby.” PDA be damned, Nico would beat down any homophobe who objected to him putting his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”

Levi hiccoughed, and then wiped his eyes again. “So she hovers. And she spins out over any little thing, thinking it’s going to be the _worst_ thing. Because she knows that horrible things can happen, not just in theory, but in reality. Because she saw the worst thing possible happen, and she had to raise me by herself, and she’s made my continued safety her life’s mission.”

“She and I can join forces then,” Nico tightened his hold around Levi, and ran his other hand through his boyfriend’s wavy mass of chestnut hair. “I’m pretty damned invested in you being safe also.”

. . .

Levi’s sniffles slowly faded off. Sitting up from his comforting spot against Nico’s chest, he took the proffered tissue and wiped his eyes and blew his nose. “I’m so glad I got to see you today,” he whispered.

“I’m so sorry you and she had to live through that.”

“It’s nothing that you caused,” the younger man stated in resignation. “I need to apologize to you, actually.”

“For what?” Nico’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“The day of the windstorm, you drew back from me after the first time we kissed. And you told me why.” Levi raised his hand against Nico’s starting to interject. “And in the clinic, you explained why you wouldn’t immediately want to be with someone who just realized he was gay. But then, in the ambulance, when you kissed me again, I let myself forget all those issues you’d raised on why things might not work out between us. I believed that if you went for me like that, it wasn’t anything I had to concern myself about. Which was boneheadedly naïve of me.”

Glancing around the park to see if anyone was nearby, Nico then kissed Levi’s forehead. “I wasn’t the most sensitive person ever that day. Not one of my finer moments.”

“But you were honest about how you felt, and why,” Levi argued back. “And when you were upset with me because I hadn’t told my mom about you, I realized that it could be because at some time in the past, someone, or more than one person had really hurt you, Nico.”

“My first boyfriend was closeted, and our relationship ended because of it,” Nico admitted. “And I’ve dated some newly out people who used me as a placeholder before they went for the next bright, shiny guy.”

“And I’d never even considered that as an issue, because it was just such a relief to realize what was actually going on with me.” Levi’s mouth twisted. “Do you know how many women I tried to build a relationship with, wondering why I never felt a proper connection, was an awful boyfriend, and thinking that I was just really, incredibly terrible at sex?”

Barking out a sudden burst of laughter, Nico assured him, “You’re not, you know. It’s a talent you must continue to share with me.”

Levi blushed. “I mean, it wasn’t _that_ many women all told, but it felt so awful to know I tried to be what they needed, and I was so bad at it. And when we got together?” He raised his eyes to meet Nico’s intent gaze. “I wondered what all the fuss was about people realizing they were gay and coming out, because suddenly I made sense to myself. I felt like I belonged in my own skin. I was more confident, and my friends and colleagues accepted me, and _I got you_.”

Nico brushed his hand against Levi’s neck, feeling a faint blush across his cheekbones as well.

“I got a man interested in me, whose physical beauty is the least of why he’s amazing. You have a brilliant mind, talented hands, and a loving heart. I love you, Nico. I could never be ashamed of you. I could never be anything but proud that you want to be with me.”

Nico coughed, and then held out his hand. “Still got that tissue?”

Levi handed it over, and then continued. “Coming out has been such a positive thing for me that I let myself gloss over how bad it could be for so many other people. I’m not making that mistake again, I promise. And although I knew in my own mind why me not telling my mom about you right away was what was best for me, it hadn’t occurred to me how it would come across to you. I’m so sorry I didn’t take that into account.”

“It felt pretty rotten,” Nico admitted. “I’ve fallen for you so hard, Levi, and in that moment I felt like I was right back to having someone keep me a secret.” He stared out at the lake, noting the sun was even lower in the sky. “You’re going to have to get going soon.”

“I know. But it was important to me to tell you what’s been going on in my mind. Do you forgive me?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Nico stated firmly. “Do you forgive me for giving you the silent treatment all that day?”

“I do.” Levi looked directly at him. “Can we agree that when one of us feels like the other is messing things up, we find time to talk about our reactions and what’s going on in our heads? Because I’m going to mess up again at times, not because I want to, and not just because I’m _me_ , but because everyone messes up every once in a while. I want to trust that when things aren’t great, we can talk about it and know that the other one will listen.”

Nico stood up, and held his hand out. Levi grasped it firmly, and held on as they began walking toward their cars. “It sounds like a good idea to me.” He turned his head and smiled at his boyfriend in the orange light of impending sunset. “I’ll bring you coffee tomorrow morning before rounds. Even though I wish I could just drag you back to my apartment so I could hold you.”

Levi looked wistful. “That sounds perfect, and like it would not be the best thing for my career.” He stopped in front of Nico’s car, pressing his hand against the taller man’s heart. “Hold me here,” he whispered gently. “And I’ll hold you in mine.”

Nico quickly pressed his lips against Levi’s in a short, chaste kiss. “I will. And when we have time, we’ll sync the calendars on our phones, and find out when I can meet your mom. Let her know I’m looking forward to it.”

“I’ll let her know to get an extra-long measuring tape so she can plan our coordinating bubbles,” Levi kissed him once more, smiling as he turned to walk towards his car. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

**Author's Note:**

> This episode hit me hard, because Nico's reaction in the on-call room told me he's been someone's secret before. Meanwhile, it made total sense to me that Levi not having told his mom might have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he's dating a man. This is me fleshing out their scenes and giving them some time together.


End file.
